Paleo for sane people

By Lachlan Williams| 5 years ago

Pic: Getty

Paleo eating started as a murmur, and it has become a full-on movement with thousands of devotees around the world, hundreds of books on it and an increasing number of conferences and activities celebrating it. But is eating like a caveman really the way to better health, or is it all just a fad? We spoke to a paleo convert, a dietitian and a research scientist to get to the bottom of what paleo eating is, and whether it's going to make you any healthier.

The converts

Suzanne: Never felt better

British-born accountant Suzanne Crawt, who lives and works in Sydney, came to paleo when she was searching for ways to live more healthily.

"Back in 2010 I was 22kg heavier than I am now," she told ninemsn. "My asthma was really bad, and I realised I couldn't really carry on like that."

Most of the health books she read struck her as ridiculous and faddish. But then she found paleo books from US-based Dr Loren Cordain and others that made sense.

"They just sounded right," she said.

Suzanne cut out all dairy, grains and legumes from her diet, and says she has never felt better.

"Humans don't tolerate grains very well," she said.

"We've only been having those for 10,000 years, since the agricultural revolution. We haven't evolved to be able to handle those."

These days, she's heavily involved in the Sydney paleo scene, attending conferences and meeting community members and the curious on a regular basis in organised groups.

"It's not just about the diet," she says. "It's about the whole lifestyle – living more naturally."

Mikey: More active with a higher sex drive

Mikey Mileos, an Australian comedian living in the USA, found himself on a similar journey. As well as paleo eating, he's also interested in bio-hacking, where users experiment with the effects of different dietary regimes on their own bodies.

"Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," he told ninemsn.

"I was fat, and had tried the 'normal' things many times and knew where they ended up. This time I wanted different results, so I tried something different. It was the only sane thing to do."

He's been on a modified paleo diet, which includes nutritional supplements, for just over six months. For Mikey, like Suzanne, it's more of a lifestyle than a diet.

"I have lost about 20 kilos from eating a paleo diet," he said. "I went from a size 42 in pants to a 32. I dress better now, and have more confidence.

"I'm also more active, and have noticed an increased sex drive."

The dietitian: It's a fad, but…

Nutritionists and dietitians warn people to be wary of many of the claims behind paleo diets.

"It is a fad diet. That needs to be very clear," Melanie McGrice, accredited practising dietitian and spokesperson for the Dietitians Association of Australia, told ninemsn.

"Any diet that cuts out one or more of the main food groups is a fad diet. Most paleo diets cut out all breads and cereals and dairy: that makes it a fad diet."

However, as fad diets go, McGrice says it's among the less harmful.

"If you compare it to something like the Lemon Detox Diet, at least it's promoting fruit and vegetables," she said.

Nevertheless, there are significant health risks to pursuing a paleo diet over a long period of time, McGrice warns.

"If someone's cutting out all dairy and not supplementing with calcium, that significantly increases the risk of osteoporosis," she said.

She said that while it's good that people have taken an interest in their own health, a lot of paleo is about selling books, conference tickets and meal plans.

"We do applaud people's efforts to eat actual, natural foods, and to do more exercise," she said. "To me, grains and dairy are very natural. It's quite easy to go and milk a cow – they've been around for millennia."

"A lot of this is about marketing. We need to remember that this is about selling books.

"We're concerned that this encourages restrictive eating, and that it's no sustainable in the long-term."

McGrice encourages people to follow the Australian dietary guidelines, and to get individually tailored advice from an accredited professional with a degree in nutrition, rather than "someone who's done a weekend course" before trying anything more restrictive.

"We want to ensure people don't have short- or long-term nutritional deficiencies and develop associated medical conditions," she said.

The researcher

Neil Mann isn't a nutritionist, and he doesn't write diet books. But his interest in evolutionary nutrition goes far beyond a weekend course.

The Melbourne-based biochemist is one of fewer than 100 people working in the area prehistoric and hunter-gatherer diets.

He is just as sceptical of the industry that's grown up around his research, and that of his colleagues.

"Most of the people who write paleo diet books are interested in making a dollar out of someone else's knowledge," he told ninemsn.

"It's often not very scientific – it's simplified to almost inaccurate levels."

While Dr Mann isn't in the business of giving dietary recommendations, his research agrees with some aspects of paleo diets, and disagrees with others.

"We used to eat the whole grain, but now most of our carb-rich foods are processed grain. When we process it, we grind it into microscopic particles, and our bodies transform it into glucose very quickly," he said.

The result is that both our blood sugar levels and insulin levels are raised, with negative health consequences.

Dr Mann says that nutritionists and dietitians are still telling people to eat more grains than are good for them.

"We're not designed for this. We probably have 50-55 percent of our energy coming from carbs now. Our ancestors had 30 percent, and it was totally un-processed."

"The professional bodies are 20 years behind the research," he said. "They don't want to recommend something until there are 20,000 papers printed on it that all agree."

Dr Mann said that the recent changes to the Australian dietary guidelines, which focused more on whole grains and legumes than processed cereal, were a step in the right direction.

The advice of some authors to cut dairy altogether is even more misguided than carb-cutting, he says.

"We've come to depend on dairy," he said. "You really need dairy to service your requirement for calcium, phosphorous and iodine. We're locked into that. If you want to not have dairy, you're going to have to take supplements.

"The fad diet people are taking this information to the extreme," he said. "I have muesli and wheat-bran for breakfast, and I put milk on them. Most of my colleagues who work in this area do the same.

"You can't be ridiculous about these things in today's world," he said. "All you do is pick the best option."